


old wood

by pseudocitrus



Category: Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul:re
Genre: F/M, Gap Filler, Gen, TG Lady Appreciation Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 23:49:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4896970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudocitrus/pseuds/pseudocitrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sasaki Haise finally comes to the place Touka prepared for him. (Related to TG:re chapter 42, and done for TG Lady Appreciation Week!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	old wood

**Author's Note:**

> for [TG Lady Appreciation Week](http://tgladyappreciationweek.tumblr.com/tagged/fanfic) ✨the day 1 prompt is **Touka** or **Hydrangea** (Perseverance, Heartfelt Emotions, Gratitude at Being Understood).
> 
> this fic is also related to TG:re chapter 42. hope you're having a good day!

She has to call three times before Nishiki picks up. His voice snaps after the last call’s last ring.

“What?”

Touka swallows. She wipes her eye, again, even though it’s dry.

 _“What?”_ he repeats, and Touka makes herself say it.

“He’s here.” It’s supposed to be a whisper, but it’s accidentally too loud, so she repeats it again, without thinking, with the intended volume: “He’s here.”

The line is silent.

Touka is, too.

“One second,” Nishiki says. There’s rustling that is soft, and gets louder, and then quiets. There’s a sigh. Finally, he says, “I told you his hair looks weird.”

“I’m surprised the Doves don’t beat him up for that on a daily basis,” she responds, weakly.

“Is his squad there with him?”

“Yeah.”

“I never thought I’d say this, but I think I liked it better when he was with Tsukiyama.”

Touka snorts, but her heart isn’t really in it.

They are quiet again.

“Remember your plan?” Nishiki asks, and Touka’s mouth is still dry, so she just makes a shallow nod.

“I remember,” Touka whispers. But her voice is feeble. What she is really saying is, _I remember, but —_

And Nishiki catches it.

“Are you still going to stick with it?” he asks.

Touka bites her lip. Even on this side of the line, she can see Nishiki adjusting his glasses as he waits.

“It’s been too long, I can’t leave Nii-san up at the front,” she murmurs finally. “I need to go.”

“...alright,” he says. “See you later.”

“Later.”

They hang up.

She takes a deep breath, and then walks steadily, back to the cafe’s main area. Nii-san is there, still surveying their table with crossed arms, and Touka frowns.

“It’s pretty slow out here,” she says. “I can handle it.”

 _Get out of here,_ she means, and Nii-san looks at her. Normally she rails on him to get out of the back and improve his meager customer interaction skills, so she’s sure that he can see right through her. To her relief, he retreats anyway.

It won’t do to have Nii-san glaring at him this whole time. What if — _he_ — is too intimidated to come back?

She forces herself not to watch him. She wipes the clean counters over and over in an attempt to calm her thrashing brain. Is he enjoying the coffee? Does he recognize any part of its flavor? Does he notice the books on the shelves? Maybe she should point them out. Just as a — a sort of introduction to the store. That would be fine, right? Because — because what if he doesn’t notice them, and he doesn’t think the cafe is interesting enough to ever return to?

She should just do it. An introduction would be fine, right? Just an introduction. Or just another opportunity to stand close enough that he can read her nametag. She could approach and she could say...she could say...

She is so consumed that she completely misses it when he and his group stand up together to leave. She only realizes when the bell on the door rings. Her head snaps up.

“Thank you!” Touka calls. “Please — please come again!”

She tries to catch his eye as she says it. But his gaze is downcast, and he doesn’t look back.

:::

Touka shows no sign of the restlessness that comes with every day he doesn’t return. She doesn’t act unusually, either, when he finally does return, alone.

As for him, he doesn’t show any sign of having noticed that there are Takatsuki Sen books on the shelves, spread out so there is at least one per section for him to spot.

“I’m a ghoul investigator,” he says, and Touka says, “Is that so,” as if she doesn’t already know it.

On some level, this is completely fucking ridiculous. He smiles at her and compliments her coffee and then looks down at his book again, and some very small but relentless part of her wants to punch him in the face all over again.

 _What the fuck is the matter with you?_ she wants to demand. _Doves? It isn’t enough that they mutilated you and abducted you and wouldn’t think twice about shooting you in the face?_

Not to mention all this time and effort spent by her, all over again, in his absence. Just to have him never ask her name. Just to have his eyes slide across her as if she were someone that he never knew or cared about at all.

He is right in front of her and might as well be roaming the city again, doing who-knows-what. He comes back again and again, and never returns.

:::

She shouldn’t do it.

All her life has been about trying to survive in the blurry line between the human world and the ghoul one. She knows the zone she occupies is not a peaceful one, and certainly not one that someone should be dragged into, against their will, _twice._

But sometimes, usually on the days that Nishiki isn’t around, she picks rabbits into the latte foam for — _his_ — new group.

She pretends to let the coffee overflow while he is still standing at the counter.

Her keychain dangles from her apron pocket.

If there was even...just a _little_...

But there never is.

:::

She tries not to dwell on it, and sometimes it’s easy. Managing the cafe takes a lot of time and energy. There’s always something to do, always something to fix or clean or replenish or spruce up.

One day, she happens across flowers for sale and can immediately imagine them on the cafe tables. She purchases them, and carries an armful back to the cafe, where she clips the stems and drops them with a splash into some spare mugs.

 _Take that,_ she thinks. Kaneki never mentioned liking flowers; for once, this is something that is just about herself, and her cafe, and her own new life. She decorates all the other tables before making her way to his, with the last, tiniest flower.

“Excuse me,” she says. She places the flowers on the center of his table and before she can walk away, he looks up at them and smiles, lightly.

“Hydrangeas,” he observes.

Despite everything, she struggles to keep her voice even.

“You like them?” she asks.

“Ah — well, yes — they're nice. But, more than that…”

He tilts his head for a moment, and then looks around the cafe. Left. Right. The ceiling. The table. The flowers again.

“More than that, everything here just seems to have a sense of…” He pauses, thinks harder. “This whole place...the tables, the wall decorations…there’s just…a sense of peace, maybe? Maybe it’s more like…a sense of ‘harmony.’”

“Is...that so.” She hates the tables, actually — they are so different from the furniture that had burned down at Anteiku. The decor, too, is something that she and Nii-san had worked out together, with a lot of glared arguments. These were the things that bothered her the most, because they didn’t match anything from back then.

 _Harmony._  She looks around the cafe, and realizes, for the first time, that he’s right.

“And of course the coffee is delicious, too.” He’s smiling again. He always does, now. “I really like everything.”

“…thank you.” She hesitates. And then gestures at the shelves. “These are still free for you to borrow, if something ever catches your interest.”

“I remember. I really have a lot of books already,” he tells her. “I wouldn’t want to take one and end up forgetting about it. But, thank you. I do like always having something to read, so...so I’ll keep them in mind.”

“Please do,” she replies, and for the first time in a while, she smiles back. “They’ll be here if you ever need them.”


End file.
